


House of Cards

by K_dAzrael



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Daddy Kink, M/M, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:36:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_dAzrael/pseuds/K_dAzrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“‘The iron fist in the velvet glove’, that’s what they call him. A dangerous man to get on the wrong side of, Harry.”</p><p>An AU where there was never a Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort, and everyone lived quite different lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know why I'm writing a fandom I haven't touched for about ten years, except I recently watched the UK version of 'House of Cards' and thought how Ian Richardson would have made a perfect Lucius Malfoy. Then I had a terrible, terrible craving for Harry/Lucius political shenanigans and daddykink. So.... here you go (rating will rise in later chapters).

“Junior Auror Potter,” Lucius Malfoy’s clipped, leisurely tones drew out the title of his addressee. “Good afternoon. Well, well, quite a thick file for such a short term of employment.” Long, deliberate fingers turned the leaves of parchment. “One or two commendations, I see, but – alas – mainly reprimands.”

Harry stood awkwardly in the centre of Malfoy’s office. It was surprisingly uncluttered for the abode of such a high-ranking civil servant – gleaming dark wood panels and the occasional magical _objét_. Luicus’ grey-blue eyes glittered palely at him in the cloister-like dimness.

“Is there a particular incident you wish to discuss, Mr Malfoy?” Harry enquired, with as much calmness and grace as he could manage.

Malfoy sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath the sharp line of his jaw. “What is my job, Mr Potter?”

“You’re Secretary to the Treasury... aren’t you?”

“Well, you can read the plaque on the door, I’ll give you that. Official titles aside, what is it that I actually _do_?”

“You’re Chief Whip. You keep people in line – make sure they follow official policy and deal with private disciplinary issues.”

“Yes, and very busy it keeps me, too.”

“You’re also Fudge’s spymaster,” Harry added. “So they say.”

“Oh, do they indeed?” Malfoy either affected surprise, or genuinely felt it. “That’s overstating it just a touch. After all, it’s not as though the the infractions of our minsters are original enough to the called ‘secrets’. Dirty little affairs, dirty big piles of ill-gotten galleons – that is the beginning and end of it.” His eyebrows rose and a fingertip found a significant line on on the reports before him. “Ah. Insubordination – that’s the other thing. A lot of that about these days.” He tutted, lips pursed in a regretful moue. “Look here, Harry – may I call you Harry? Well, it simply won’t do.”

“I apologise, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” Malfoy agreed, a hard edge of threat in his voice. He contemplated Harry for a long moment. “You knew my son at school, didn’t you?”

“I knew Draco.”

“I recall you two were sporting rivals.”

Harry shrugged aggressively. “For all any of that matters now.”

Malfoy gave an amused hum. “He called you ‘the idiot savant of the dark arts’. Good reflexes, he said, and a decent amount of power, just not the faintest idea what to do with it, and moronically stubborn to boot.” Malfoy drummed his fingers in the desk. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Is that a fair assessment?”

“Back then, perhaps. I’ve studied a lot harder since leaving school.”

“What for?”

“What do you mean?”

“To what ends, Mr Potter? Is it, for instance, your dream to get yourself fired from the Ministry, or – what is worse – to end up shunted off to some shoebox of an office in the very leakiest basement level?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s the way you’re going at present, I’m afraid.”

“Consider me well-warned, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir’ – I am not your potions professor, you don’t need to stand there scuffing your feet in anticipation of a smacked bottom.” Harry flushed at this turn of phrase, he could feel the tips of his ears burning. His discomfort seemed to amuse Malfoy greatly. “No. Indeed, you quite mistake me. I take a very keen interest in your career. Since perusing this file I have been thinking that, perhaps, it might be in your favour to take a little detour into my department.”

Harry straightened up in alarm. “But I’m not interested in...” he faltered (spying? bullying?), “in your line of work. I mean, I don’t have the aptitude for it.”

Malfoy smiled. “Oh, Mr Potter, I quite disagree. According to these reports you’re clever, fearless and arrogant, with an unerring instinct for locating trouble. That’s exactly the kind of character I require.”

“But I want to be an auror. I’ve always wanted–”

“Yes, yes,” Malfoy cut across him impatiently. “And so you shall, but not at this rate. So wind your neck in a little, hmm? Learn the lay of the land before you go stampeding through it like a herd of hippogriffs. There is a lot I could teach you about how things work here. What you do with that information once we amicably part ways would, of course, be entirely at your discretion.” 

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it with a click – not trusting himself to say anything not immediately offensive to someone who so vastly outranked him.

Malfoy drummed his fingers. “I do not require an immediate answer. Tomorrow first thing will be quite sufficient.”

“Um...” Harry stared at him and Malfoy sighed, shooing him off with a flick of his fingertips. 

“Off you go. Be so good as to tell the shame-faced Mr Goggin out there that I’m in a foul temper. It always makes my life easier if they break down immediately.”

*~*~*

On his way home, Harry stopped by Remus’ cottage. As he passed through the creaky wicket of the front gate he found his godfather in the garden tinkering with his vintage motorcycle, vital parts of machinery strewn about on the sunburned grass.

“Hi, Sirius. How’s tricks?”

Sirius looked up and grinned wolfishly at him, rubbing his hands on an oil-stained cloth. “Harry! Not bad, not bad. This old girl is up to her tricks again.”

“You should get a new one. That thing’s held together with nothing but oil and charms.”

“Oh, you’re an old fuddy-duddy before your time. Just like Remus.”

“Like who, Sirius?” Remus said, coming out of the front door with a battered enamel mug of tea. “Harry, wonderful to see you.” Remus passed the mug off to Sirius and came forward to give Harry a hug. Remus was well wrapped up in a woolen cardigan and he looked tired – it was only a few days after the full moon. 

“How are things at the Ministry?”

“Not great. I um... well, I’ve been shadowing Rufus Scrimgeour. He’s not my biggest fan.”

“Hmm,” said Remus, giving Harry a stern look.

“Did he dob you in to Malfoy yet?” asked Sirius.

“Yeah, kind of. I had a meeting with him today, sort of.”

“Smug git give you a bollocking?”

“Not exactly. Actually, I think he tried to head-hunt me.”

Sirius gave a humourless bark of laughter. “Must have mistook you for one of his own kind – an arrogant, devious bastard. I hope you told him where to go.”

“Well, I didn’t say much of anything, really. I’m supposed to give him my answer tomorrow. It is odd, isn’t it? I’ve never even met him before.” 

“It isn’t like Malfoy to take a stab in the dark, though,” said Remus in his thoughtful, cautious way. “He’s clever about people – devious, maybe, but clever. Sirius, even you have to admit that he’s good at what he does.”

Sirius nodded, grudgingly, as the took a slurp of his tea. “But that’s because he made it his job to be a bully and a sneak.”

Remus scratched his chin. “What was it they used to call him, Sirius – back when you were an auror? Oh yes, ‘the iron fist in the velvet glove’. Not, I dare say, a person I would care to be on the wrong side of if I were working in the Ministry.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Harry sighed. 

“Did he threaten you?” asked Sirius.

“No, quite the opposite – that’s what’s so weird about it.”

“Well, why don’t you stay for dinner?” Remus asked, squeezing his shoulders. “We can sit down together and figure out his nefarious plan.”

“I’d love to, but I said I go over to mum’s.”

“Ah. Where is she living at the moment?”

“Severus’ old family home – you know, since Hogwarts is out for summer.”

“And how is old Snivellus?” Sirius quipped.

“Sirius!” Remus snapped. “For God’s sake, grow up!”

Harry looked at his feet and shrugged. “They’re both well, I think.”

Remus lowered his voice. “What about your father? Have you heard from him at all?”

“Not recently. I mean, I stay at Godric’s Hollow most of the time, just in case he shows up, or there’s post, but...” Harry sighed. “He sent an owl at Christmas. He was in Switzerland.”

Sirius and Remus looked at each other – a dark, complicated exchange of guilt, worry and more than a little exasperation. 

*~*~*

Severus opened the door to the house at Spinner’s End. From outside it was an unremarkable building – a grey, detached two-storey among the struggling suburbs of a once-prosperous industrial town. Inside, of course, it was bigger, warmer and more cheerful – all the wizarding mod cons. 

“Harry,” he said, dark eyes flickering over his step-son’s face. There was welcome in his expression – affection, even – but awkwardness and reserve, too. They shook hands, neither apparently feeling a hug to be entirely appropriate. 

“You look well, Severus,” Harry said. 

“I wish I could say the same – Lily will be horrified by the way those robes hang off you. How are you getting on at the Ministry?”

Harry shrugged, not wanting to give his mother cause for anxiety (or Snape for stern disapproval). “Ok, they don’t let me near the interesting stuff yet.”

“Fulvia has been asking for you. Something about a dark wizard from the twelfth century – she thought you’d know.”

“Oh, Sigurd the Sickening? Cool.”

“Kindly do not fill her head with any more grisly history or lore.”

Harry grinned. “Severus, I never thought I’d see the day that you would wish a child to dwell in ignorance.”

There was the sound of rapid footsteps above. Harry looked past Snape to where his half-sister was thundering down the stairs two at a time. Her pale face seemed almost to float mid-air, surrounded as it was by her veil of black hair. She was at that awkward point of adolescence when nothing seemed to be the right proportion - her arms and legs were gangly, but her face retained its childish, chubby roundness. 

“Hey Harry!” She all but tackled him around the middle.

“Hey Fulvia,” he grinned and ruffled her fringe.

“Come on, hurry up – I’m starving! Mum held dinner just for you.”

“Ok, ok,” Harry laughed as she pulled him towards the dining room. He could hear Snape’s sigh of disapproval at their youthful exuberance.

As they entered, Lily was just on the point of lighting the candles with a sweep of her wand. Her smile flickered into being with the illumination.

“Hello Harry, darling.”

*~*~*

“Welcome home, dear.”

Narcissa Malfoy met her husband at the front door and took his cloak – a duty a house elf could perform, of course, but one which she felt was an appropriate gesture of wifely solicitation.

Lucius took her face between both his hands and tilted her face up to kiss her, planting it soft and deep on her lips – never a sloppy, desperate lover’s kiss, not for her (that would be an insult). He released her after one lingering moment and turned to place his cane in its cradle beneath the coat rack, disengaging his wand from the top to place it in his robe pocket.

“The house elves are serving dinner in fifteen minutes,” Narcissa said. “Shall we go into the drawing room?”

After pouring Lucius a drink, Narcissa seated herself on the grey brocade sofa and resumed work on her embroidery. The cloth hung suspended in mid-air, charmed needles dancing their way around the border to work a repeating pattern of ivy leaves as she concentrated on the more intricate piece of the centre, a serpent coiling around the neck of a rearing unicorn (a detail from the Malfoy crest). Lucius turned his attention to the freshly-pressed newspapers that had been left out on the coffee table. 

“Darling, I wish you wouldn’t read those before dinner,” said Narcissa without looking up. “It can’t be good for the digestion.”

“No indeed, _The Daily Prophet_ ’s brand of tripe does always rather stick in the craw. Have you read this?”

“I may have glanced at the headlines.”

Lucius cleared his throat. “‘Person’s Rights activist Hermione Granger meets with Minster for Magic to renews demands for elfish autonomy.’ Oh good grief. Elfish autonomy! ‘Speaking earlier today, Ms Granger told _The Prophet_ –’”

“Oh ‘ms’, is it?” Narcissa gave her tinkling laugh. “I’m sure that gives her great comfort. If the poor girl ever learned some decent hair-straightening charms perhaps she’d catch a husband and cease all this tedious rabble-rousing.”

The corner of Lucius’ mouth twitched upwards in amusement as he continued: “‘Slavery cannot be swept under the rug of tradition, nor dignified by the money and prestige of those who profit by it.’ Has this woman ever met a house elf? Does she think they’re noble, free-spirits?” Lucius clicked his fingers and called out “Eppie!”

A diminutive elf in a stained hessian sack appeared, her eyes wobbling. “Yes, Master Lucius?”

“Eppie, would you like to be free? Hmm? Would you like me to throw you some clothes and send you out into the big, wide world?”

The elf shook her head so hard her ears slapped against her own face. “Oh, no, no, Master! Please, no!”

Lucius regarded Narcissa. “Well then.”

“Has Eppie done something to displease Master? Should Eppie punish herself?”

“Not if it’ll delay dinner. Off you pop.”

The bewildered elf disappeared mid-bow. 

“So much for the bleeding hearts,” Lucius said. “Oh, but Granger has more than one drum to bang, it would seem. ‘The official reason for Ms Granger’s meeting with Minister Cornelius Fudge was to discuss measures for opening up the wizarding world to muggle-borns and their families. She explained: ‘for many young witches and wizards born into muggle families, magic is cause for fear and isolation. Education on their powers at a younger age, as well as more transparency– blah blah, so on and so forth.”

“What does Fudge say?”

“Our glorious leader believes it an excellent idea and makes many interested noises. Empty promises, of course.”

“Are they?”

“What else could they be? Fudge is vain and loves a photo-op, but he still knows what side his bread is buttered on – which families finance his campaigns. They are not muggle-born dentists, I’ll tell you that much.” 

Narcissa put her needle through the unicorn’s eye and let it rest there as she looked off, thoughtfully. “I’m concerned that Fudge is beginning to suffer from serious delusions of benevolence. He’s been in power a good few years now and I rather suspect he’s thinking of his ministerial epitaph. No-one wants to be remembered as merely a caretaker.”

“Oh, indeed? You think he’ll go through with it, then?”

“He might just be foolish enough to try. Watch, and wait.”

Lucius glanced at her penetratingly as he folded up the newspaper. “And then?”

“My dear Lucius,” she said, pronouncing his name as two syllables, as was her wont. “Do you know why I married you?”

“I always thought it was to escape your clinically insane extended family. Why, were there other reasons?”

She sat back and regarded him with a wistful affection, as one might a painting. “I saw greatness written in your brow. And believe me when I say that although you are an excellent disciplinarian and caretaker, it is not your fate to be thus content.”

Lucius sipped his whisky. “Alright, but just in case you think this was all your idea, you should know that I’m expanding my networks.”

Nacrissa smiled. “Oh?”

“Hmm. For example, I decided that since no-one appreciates what I do, I’d just have to create my own little protégé.”

“Yes, and who might that be?”

“A perfectly mediocre lump of clay named, perhaps appropriately, Potter.”

“Not that shaggy-haired little half-blood that so thwarted our Draco on the quidditch field?”

“The very same.” 

“Belated revenge is it, making him your slave?”

“You quite mistake me. It’s not only Fudge who can be benevolent, you know.”

Narcissa laughed. “Oh, indeed?” 

Lucius sat back in his armchair and brushed a speck of lint from the hand-stitched cuff of his robe sleeve. “I have decided – very generously I might add – to let him _want_ to be my slave.”

*~*~*

“Come on, Harry,” Fulvia prompted, mashing her carrots into a pulp with the back of her fork instead of eating them, “tell us about the dark wizards your department tracks down. I bet you’ve seen some cool and scary stuff.”

“It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say they’re ‘dark wizards’,” Harry said. “I mean, they’re not megalomaniacs or anything, or even particularly powerful. Mostly it’s people who sell or collect dangerous artifacts. Or use them on their neighbours – most people are surprisingly petty and predictable.”

Fulvia sighed. “Lame. There hasn’t been anyone really dark since Grindelwald.”

“No, not in Britain,” Harry replied thoughtfully. “I guess there are plenty elsewhere, though.”

“Like who?”

“Um, well there’s that guy in Hungary. The one who called himself ‘Lord of the Magyar’ and built an invisible wall around a whole forest. And anyone who wanders into it never comes out again, so they say.”

“A tin-pot dictator,” Snape said with a dismissive curl of his lip. “They all are. Small minds, little power. Just persuasive and deluded enough to get a few loutish followers and declare themselves kings of something or other. Nothing like Grindelwald.” 

Harry glanced at Snape. “You sound like you admire him.”

“He was – is – a murderer, and I cannot approve of that. Yet, he had great mastery of his powers and knowledge of arcane lore which we must now consider lost. I simply lament that he did not use his talents better.”

“Dark wizards all have the same ideas,” said Lily. “To show how big they are by putting muggles in their place. As if it is clever, or brave, to terrify those with no power.”

“It’s not hard to see why some people think muggles deserve it, though,” Harry said. “I don’t mean I think they do – it’s just... people like Aunt and Uncle Dursley, mum. They’re so viciously closed-minded. Anyone with abilities beyond theirs – or anyone who doesn’t consider chintz curtains and a flatscreen TV the pinnacle of all human aspiration – is a ‘freak’.”

“Oh God,” Fulvia put her hand over her mouth. “We’re not going over there on Christmas Eve again are we, mum? Please say we’re not.”

“It doesn’t seem fair, sometimes, is all I’m saying,” Harry continued. “That we should be the ones to hide in corners and pockets,” he gestured to the room, then to the yellow, industrial glare of the streetlights beyond the windows. 

“Where would you rather be?” Lily asked, smiling. “Milton Keynes?”

“I mean it,” Fulvia pressed. “I’m not going to Little Whinging this year. It’s not fair. How come dad never has to go?”

“Because, dear, your father knows many, many more painful curses than you do.”

“Mum, last year Aunt Petunia got me gym membership as a present! Then every time I even looked at a vol-au-vent she’d poke me with a bony finger and say ‘a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!’.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry told her. “I bought her perfume that starts to smell like rotting fish after you put it on, and doesn’t wash off for a week.”

“Ha! Where’d you get that, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes?”

Harry grinned at her. “Where else?” 

*~*~*

After dinner, Severus returned to his laboratory to check on a potion and Fulvia was sent (under protest) to do the clearing up, leaving Harry and his mother to take a walk around the scrubby garden. The air was full of midges and beyond the horizon of the plywood fence the lights of the town twinkled in the distance, cars beetling to and fro along the bottom of the hill.

“Why on earth does Severus keep this place, anyway?” Harry asked. “Couldn’t he sell it and live somewhere less... depressing?”

“Sentimental reasons, I suppose. Severus’ childhood wasn’t very happy – his mother was a pureblood who fancied she’d married below her station with a muggle. But he grew up here, and so did I. Just down there,” Lily pointed. “The house isn’t there anymore, though. They turned that street into a shopping centre a while back, and now it’s derelict.”

“You and Severus knew each other back when you were kids?”

Lily folded her arms across her chest against the chill. “Yes, since we were seven. He claims he loved me ever since, you know.” The fine lines around her eyes creased as she smiled and shook her head. “Silly, really.” 

“Is it?”

“What do seven year olds know about love? Or seventeen year olds, for that matter?”

“Meaning... you and dad?”

She looked at him in a sad, earnest way. “It’s no-one’s fault. We were still growing, and by the time we had finished we were different people, that’s all.”

“I don’t blame you, you know. I remember dad was... difficult.”

Lily gazed off into the distance again. “He was happiest at school, your dad. All those little rebellious shenanigans with his friends. Being a quidditch hero. He liked being the big fish in the small pond. Never quite knew what to do with himself afterwards, I don’t think. He was ashamed that he never lived up to his potential.”

“I get that too, sometimes. I mean, I don’t know what I’m good at or what I’m supposed to do with my life.”

“Harry, you’re twenty-four. Everyone your age feels like that.”

Harry thought about Lucius Malfoy, his deliberate, insinuating way of speaking; the confidence and purpose he exuded. He looked at his mother as her face was turned away, half-eclipsed; her fond expression blurred into something lost and mysterious. 

What were her private thoughts in such a moment, he wondered. Was she happy? She was always so gentle, mild and calm it was impossible to tell.

Harry remembered his father’s volatility and passion – dangerous and self-destructive, undoubtedly, but at least he thought things, at least he _wanted_ things. 

They went back inside through the open French windows. Snape was talking to Fulvia as she waved an absent hand towards a pan and the scrubbing brush dancing attendance upon it, the profusion of bubbles evidence of her neglectfulness in setting the spell. Lily extinguished the candles in the dining room with a wave as she went to join them in the kitchen, rattling the kettle onto the range as she nudged her husband a step to one side with her hip.

Harry paused with his shoulder against the doorframe and watched them. The low-level of their bickering spoke of a kind of intimacy and contentment and he felt, suddenly, as if he was watching them through a pane of glass. Like it was someone else’s family.

“I’m going back to Godric’s Hollow, mum,” he called.

“Are you sure, dear? The spare room’s made up.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Got some work to do before I go in tomorrow. Some thinking, anyway.”

“Don’t work too hard, darling,” Lily said. “I worry about you, you know.”

When Harry apparated into the still, clock-ticking dark of the Potter cottage he could still feel the pressure of her lips on his cheek.

*~*~*

“Alright,” said Harry, standing his ground in the office doorway. “Deal.”

Lucius Malfoy paused in his paperwork and raised his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Do I have to sign a magically binding contract or something? I said ‘deal’.”

“Now Harry,” Malfoy brushed the tip of the eagle-feather quill over his lips. “We can’t have this starting off with you pretending you’re doing me a favour, can we? It’s really not at all in the spirit of the piece.”

“What then? You want me to get down and lick your boots?”

Malfoy smiled as if he was imagining that very scenario and Harry felt the tips of his ears prickle and redden again. “Oh, I don’t think we need stoop to that, but you could at least ask nicely.”

“Would you...” Harry took a deep breath and tried again. “I would like to work for you, Mr Malfoy.”

“Very well then,” Lucius Malfoy said, threading his fingers together on top of the gleaming desk. “Fortunately, I took the liberty of arranging your transfer already. You’re free to start right away.”


	2. Chapter 2

Harry stood next to Fulvia in the second hand section of Flourish and Blotts as she examined the faded lettering on the spines of the books stuffed higgledy-piggledy onto the shelves. 

“Excited for second year?” he prompted. “Are you going to try out for the team?”

Fulvia shrugged. “Dunno. It’s kind of a boy’s club.”

“That’s your own fault for ending up in Slytherin.”

“Shut it,” she shoved him lightly. 

“You’re good, though, Vi. You’d make a great chaser.”

“I’m ok, and that’s the point – everyone knows you played for Puddlemere and were the youngest seeker in the history of forever. They’d expect me to be some kind of quidditch prodigy.”

Harry frowned. “I didn’t realise _I_ was your embarrassing family member.” 

“You’re not. It’s just... you don’t know what it’s like, being the younger sibling. The teachers have these expectations...”

“You think I never got flack from the teachers who remembered my dad, or a load of over-inflated expectations from those who knew mum? Sometimes it’s a right pain in the arse that everyone knows everyone in our world.”

“It’s positively incestuous,” she agreed, looking off across the bookshop. Harry yelped as Fulvia’s sharp fingernails suddenly dug into his elbow. “Oh my God,” she hissed, “it’s Damien O’Neill.” 

“Who?”

“He’s the hottest boy in the entire house. His family are the O’Neill’s of Tyrone – they’re haunted by their own _bean-sídhe_.”

“Er, right. That’s what girls are into these days, is it?” Harry leaned back and squinted to where this flower of Slytherin youth stood frowning at the divination books. He had that uniquely celtic complexion that is so pale it is almost blue and translucent. His hair was really more strawberry blonde than red, and it curled slightly as it cascaded over his shoulders. Instead of a cloak he wore a grey wool mantle, fastened at his throat with a triquetra-pattern brooch in finely-worked bronze and gold. Harry wasn’t one to take particular notice of people’s eyes, but these were a frigid, startling blue – whether he meant it to be or not, they made the boy’s stare incredibly unnerving. 

With this sneer of displeasure he reminded Harry inescapably of Draco Malfoy. The wizard aristocracy all looked like they’d been raised in some dark, carefully cultivated place – like they were the human equivalent of forced rhubarb or white asparagus. 

“Do you want to go and talk to him?”

“Are you mad?” Fulvia hissed. “He’s a fifth-year!”

Harry held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just keep staring at him like a creeper then, see if I care.”

“Oh my god, I’m not!” Fulvia hit him with a book – a folio that almost knocked the wind out of him. “Make yourself useful and go and ask dad if I can buy this.”

Harry found Snape in the section for rare and valuable books perusing the bay of sixteenth-century alchemetical works. 

“Fulvia wants to know if she can have this.”

Snape snatched it from Harry and flipped through to look at its contents. “Hmm. And has she collected all the books that are actually on her reading list?”

“I said she could stop by Godric’s Hollow and take my copies.”

“Ah, mint condition are they?” Snape quipped drily. “Spines uncracked?” 

“Well, at least you know she won’t be able to cheat off my notes.”

Snape made an odd sound at the back of his throat that Harry realised, belatedly, was amusement. After a moment’s silence, he said: “I hear you’re working for Lucius Malfoy now.”

“Who told you that?”

“We have many acquaintances in common, Lucius and I,” Snape said evasively. “You didn’t tell your mother you’ve decided to change careers.”

“I still want to be an auror. This is just a detour, I guess,” Harry shrugged.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to be an auror? Is it to impress your feckless godfather?”

Harry bristled. “I know you two never got on, but all the same I’d rather you didn’t talk about Sirius like that.”

“Do you tell him to extend the same courtesy to me?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” 

Snape blinked at him, a hint of surprise in his expression. “Well,” he said, adopting a more conciliatory tone, “all I meant was that perseverance is admirable, but you should give some consideration to what it is you’re best at.”

Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Did you tell mum – about me working for Malfoy?”

“I did not. Why, do you assume she would disapprove?”

“Yeah, I guess she would.” Harry looked up at his step-father from underneath his unruly fringe. “Do you know Malfoy well?”

“Lucius was a prefect when I entered Hogwarts. He was... welcoming and gracious to me, which is more than I could say of many of my peers. We shared common interests.”

“The dark arts?”

“Lucius would say there is no such thing. There is only knowledge, more or less dangerous depending on the abilities and intentions of its user.”

“Do you agree?”

“Certainly I do.” Snape continued to leaf slowly through the dog-eared pages of Fulvia’s book. “Although the part about abilities and intentions is key.”

“Is Lucius trustworthy?”

Snape made the odd sound of amusement again. “Not in the least. You don’t get to own half of Wiltshire by being content with your fair share – Lucius Malfoy comes from a long and eminently distinguished line of liars, bullies and thieves. To the manner born, you might say.”

“Yet you still think of him as a friend?”

“The Malfoy family has no permanent friends, only interests. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful, or enjoyable to know, as long as one exercises reasonable caution. My advice is to that end is: don’t meddle in things where your interests run contrary to his, and never be so arrogant as to imagine you can out-maneuver a man who was fed and nurtured with cunning.”

Harry met his steady gaze. “Thanks for the heads up.” 

Snape offered him back the tattered history book. “Tell Fulvia her taste in reading matter remains atrocious, but since this represents a step up from _Still More Scandalous Sorcerers and Monstrous Mages_ , I suppose she can have it.”

Harry returned to the second hand section to discover Fulvia had bumped into a schoolmate of her own age (a Ravenclaw if the blue and orange ribbons tying back her glossy curls were any indication) and the two girls were arm in arm giggling over the illustrations in a particularly naff and outdated transfigurations book. 

He watched his sister from a distance for a moment and felt a pang for her in her adolescent awkwardness. Her friend had dark, flawless skin, set off by the gold trim of her robes and her brows were sweeping arches that gave her face a touch of dramatic beauty. She was rather petite, but she already had feminine curves. Fulvia, by contrast, was beanpole tall, sickly pale and a bit prone to spots. Although she had Lily’s heart-shaped face, she had inherited a miniature version her father’s hooked nose and her hair was fine and tended towards lankness. She might grow into the features, he supposed, but equally she might not. He could barely imagine how painful it must be to be a teenage girl with a beautiful mother and early-blooming friends.

Fulvia noticed him and grinned. “Hey Harry, this is Alisha.”

As the girl turned towards him he caught sight of a Puddlemere United pin on the strap of her satchel. She blushed and elbowed Fulvia, who grinned and mouthed “she fancies you.”

Everyone was awkward in their own way, he supposed. Except, he amended, the true aristocrats, raised to believe themselves masters of all they surveyed and that everything was theirs to enjoy or disdain, as they chose. What was that like?

*~*~*

Neville’s eyebrows almost met in the middle, accenting his face with a circumflex of consternation. He brushed at the spot of damp on the front of his robe from his spluttered-out drink. “I mean, what do you want me to say? It’s a bit like you said you’ve started working for a Norwegian Ridgeback.”

Harry sipped his firewhiskey. “He’s not that bad. He’s interesting, actually, I’m learning a lot.”

“Like where, exactly, to stick a knife in someone’s back?”

Harry grinned. “Come on, Neville – Lucius Malfoy would never kill someone with a _knife_.” 

“You’re scary sometimes, Harry.”

“I get the feeling I’m going to be a lot scarier before all this is over. How’s St Mungo’s?”

“Yeah, good. Herbology labs are quiet and largely free of political intrigue – you probably find that boring.”

Harry laughed. It was a thursday evening and The Leaky Cauldron was rapidly filling up with thirsty patrons.

“Your mum’s campaign is going well, I think.”

Harry frowned. “What campaign? She never said anything.”

“Yeah, you know she wants a ward to treat people who are mentally ill.” 

“Like the Janus Thickey Ward?”

“That’s for damage caused by magic. She means you know... people who are depressed, or suffering from delusions. And they could be treated with specially-developed magic as well as muggle therapies.”

Harry looked across the room to where a man wearing a bearskin cloak (with a hood composed of its taxidermied head) was muttering angrily to something in a carpet bag. “How would we even tell if a wizard was mentally ill, as opposed to just regular bonkers?’

“Yeah, I know,” Neville shook his head absently. “She has a lot of supporters, but there’s still opposition – I mean, our kind are protective of their eccentricities.” He drained his pint and set the glass down on the sticky table. “Stay for one more?”

Harry took out his pocket watch and saw its hand had moved across the dial from ‘drinking’ to ‘work’. “Ah, can’t mate. I have to nip down Knockturn Alley and see a man about some photographs.”

“Mysterious,” Neville’s eyebrows rose again. “And scary.”

*~*~*

When the fat envelope was safely tucked into his robe pocket, Harry made his way back to Diagon Alley and then headed quickly towards the wall that served as entrance to the muggle realm. As soon as he reached Charing Cross Road, he ducked down a side street to transfigure his clothes into jeans, t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt. He didn’t have any sterling to hand, but he could feel the sharp, plastic edges of his membership card in his pocket.

He walked quickly through the streets, side-stepping the pavement-loafing smokers outside the pubs and keeping his head down. He didn’t need to read the street signs, he knew the path by heart: left, right, left again, end of a neon-lit alley and down the stairs to basement level. He pushed a buzzer and blinked up at the security camera. A dull industrial buzz sounded to give him admission. He stepped into the foyer, flashed his card at the security guard yawning over his newspaper in the booth and received a rough, folded towel and a wristlet locker-key.

As he jogged up the staircase to the changing rooms he contemplated stopping in the communal areas first: a jacuzzi maybe, or a little while in the actual sauna, but as he removed his clothes he could feel the buzz of elicit excitement and need crawling up and down his spine. He found his room instead, leaving the door ajar as he cast off the towel and eased down on his front atop the plastic-covered mattress. 

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After only a few minutes he sensed movement in the doorway and turned his face to look up. A tall, broad-shouldered figure watched him with avid attention. Harry pushed past his sudden nervousness and nodded to indicate the attention was welcome.

The door closed with a click, leaving only the illumination of neon coming around the window blinds. Harry couldn’t easily make out the man’s facial features as he approached, only his eyes, which were wide and bright with arousal. When he spoke his voice was so low that it seemed to vibrate against Harry’s skin like a bassline.

“Is that what you’re into?” he indicated Harry’s position with a wave of his forefinger.

“Yeah.” Harry sat back on his knees and ran a hand down his stomach to absently fondle his own hardening prick. “You?”

“Yeah. Suck me first, ok?”

“Absolutely,” said Harry, then immediately regretted how enthusiastic and dorky it sounded. 

The man laughed, then reached out to stroke down Harry’s throat. “Like being told what to do, do you?”

“Oh yeah,” Harry replied, swallowing against the pressure of the fingers against his Adam’s apple. 

The slightly off-putting thought occurred to him that his current boss would find that confession amusing.

*~*~*

At that moment, Lucius Malfoy was enjoying a rather different kind of entertainment which none-the-less centred on the oral talents of a young man: a boy soprano, accompanied by a lute and viol. His song was a seventeenth-century lyric of obscure meaning and exquisite melancholy; above the whisk collar of his sombre dress robe his throat trembled like an aspen leaf as his voice soared up to the rafters. Narcissa (who was the real aficionado, and noted patron of the arts) listened with her translucent eyelids closed, an expression of rapture on her face. When the song came to an end she was startled back to earthly awareness by the ripples of applause. 

“He’s a muggle, you know,” Narcissa said as the audience began to file out of the hall. “The child. I’d say the conservatoire is going to the dogs, but well... it is a surpassingly lovely voice. If one were romantically inclined, one might almost say that a talent, a really great talent, is a kind of magic in itself.”

Lucius smiled wonderingly. “You astound me sometimes, my dear.”

“Of course,” she continued, “that freshness, that light perfection of tone, it won’t last. He will age, and the making of _castrati_ has gone out of fashion.”

They rose from their seats and Lucius took his wife’s arm, nodding in recognition to various acquaintances across the room as they made their way down the central aisle of the recital hall. Narcissa was wearing a midnight blue robe of raw silk that left her shoulders bare, around her neck hung a sapphire pendant which was as old as the Malfoy name. Lucius had presented it to her on the morning of their wedding, saying: “to me, you surpass even this jewel in both beauty and value, Narcissa.” 

That callow lie had, in time, become a truth. 

“Speaking of artistic creations,” she said brightly, “how is your little lump of clay? As conformable as you would wish?”

“He learns quickly. Still, there are some vestiges of naiveté and idealism which I find worrisome.”

“I’m sure you can find a way to bring him to heel.” She arched a pale eyebrow. “Or make him roll over for you.”

“This dog metaphor makes me seriously concerned what you must think of my tastes, Narcissa.”

She laughed and squeezed his arm. “I just wanted to make it clear that you have my permission. Should you deem it necessary.”

“You are indeed a helpmeet meet, my dear.” He swept the hollow of her clavicle with the edge of his thumb and was not immune to the envious corner-of-the-eye glances this drew from other male concert-goers. “In all things.”

“And what of our glorious leader – is he behaving himself?”

“That remains to be seen. He has requested a private meeting tomorrow. I believe he wishes to receive my opinion on some new initiatives, and potential reactions thereto. ‘Will it play in the provinces, Lucius?’ that kind of thing.”

“I’m sure I can hardly contain my excitement. Do you consider it an honour that he so values your opinion?”

“He doesn’t value it. He merely recognises that I possess a sense he does not – that with a flicker of my forked tongue I can scent out public opinion.”

“Then he should do more than value you, my love – he should fear you.”

*~*~*

Harry made his way through the atrium at a fast clip as he headed towards the lifts, skittering his way around the Fountain of Magical Brethren and ducking and weaving through the milling crowds of ministry employees as if they were bludgers.

On level one, he pushed through the doors to the outer office and sent secretaries and interns scattering like a flock of pigeons. He opened the double doors to Lucius’ inner sanctum and grinned maniacally at him on the threshold, then stepped forward and closed the doors behind himself, leaning back on them with his arms folded across his chest.

Lucius was not playing along this morning. He was glaring at what looked like a muggle newspaper, holding it away from his body between his gloved fingertips and thumbs at the top corners as if he feared contamination.

“Where on earth did you get that?” Harry asked.

“Confiscated it from young Smith out there, who commutes. He lives in the ‘other’ London – if you can call that living.” Lucius’ brow furrowed as he stared at the cheap print and eerie, unmoving photographs. “Do you know that muggles have competing political parties? And, it seems, trials by jury. One wonders how they get anything done.” With a touch of wandless magic Lucius disintegrated the newspaper in a burst of blue, heatless flame.

“I always liked the sound of the ‘shadow cabinet’ – sounds very arcane, don’t you think?”

“Ah, I’d almost forgotten your... connections to that world.”

Harry gave him a disgruntled look. “If you detest the muggle world so much, why read about it?”

“It’s an issue I believe our M.O.M. may be about to ill-advisedly blunder into. There’s no excuse for being as ill-informed as he is.” Lucius removed his gloves, tugging them loose one finger at a time. “Well?”

“You’re right about the expense account irregularities,” Harry said. 

“Well naturally – I can do my sums. The question was never ‘if’, but rather ‘what on?’.”

“You’ll like it.”

Lucius’ eyes glittered. “Will I? I assure you, I’ve seen, and grown tired of it all.”

“It’s weirder than you think.” Harry pulled an envelope from his robe pocket and slid it across the table.

Lucius pulled the photographs out and flipped through them with an amused, puzzled look on his face. “What am I looking at?”

“An ornamental fwooper house,” said Harry. “The Versailles of ornamental fwooper houses. This thing is like, twelve feet tall and better decorated than my home.”

“Does that say more about our friend’s extravagance, or your own woeful lack of taste?”

“Very funny.”

“Well, shall we get Mr Mockridge in here?” Lucius wrote a short note and tapped the leaf of violet-coloured memorandum paper with his wand tip; the paper folded itself up into a neat little aeroplane and went soaring off the desk. Harry opened the door to let it out.

When the pale-faced Cuthbert Mockridge tapped on the office door some twenty minutes later, Harry took up his position arms-crossed against a cabinet. He did not participate in the interrogations, but Lucius liked having him as an observer and had commented that his looming, silent presence seemed to unsettle the interviewees further.

“Now what’s all this, Lucius? I have a department to run, you know, I don’t have time to be at your beck and call–”

Lucius regarded him cooly. “Take a seat, Mr Mockridge. This is my assistant, Mr Potter, before whom you may speak freely.” Lucius threaded his fingers together on the highly polished desk. “Before I explain why I have called you here this morning, perhaps you would like to take a moment to reflect.” 

“Reflect on what?” Mockridge’s superior bluster was belied by a look of rising panic.

“Your place in things. You are the current Head of Goblin Liaison.”

“Just what do you mean to imply by ‘current’?”

“That young Dirk Cresswell is very fluent in Gobbledegook, and rather skilled in his negotiations.”

“He’s gunning for my job, then, and you’re trying to warn me?”

“Perhaps. You’re the expert in goblin... culture, such as it is. What would you say are the traits they find most despicable?” 

“They dislike... well, stupidity, and dishonesty. Cheating. Everyone knows that.” 

Lucius pushed the envelope towards him and after a second’s hesitation, Mockridge removed the photographs with trembling fingers.

Lucius gave him a tight smile. “To say that this looks bad would be an understatement. Appropriating taxpayer money for an item which constitutes at least two definitions of the word ‘folly’...” he tutted. “Cuthbert. What can have possessed you?”

He started to cry, which Harry wasn’t expecting – wrenching sobs half-stifled by his hand. 

“Well?” Lucius watched him with considerable disgust and not the least modicum of sympathy. “Don’t try my patience. I too am a very busy man.”

“My wife,” Mockridge stuttered, “she... she just loves those damn birds so much and I thought...” He wiped his face with his hands and looked up, the light of desperation in his eyes. “We can make this go away, can’t we Lucius? I mean, I’ll just get rid of the thing - sell it, and return the money and...”

“Oh, I’m afraid not. Financial records do not simply... disappear.” 

Mockridge let out a choked sound of despair.

“But,” said Lucius brightly. “I do not necessarily have to act on all the information I receive. Here at the Ministry, I serve the greatest good, and it just so happens that I currently consider you to be the lesser of two evils.”

“Oh thank-you! Thank-you!” Mockridge faltered, seeming caught between relief and suspicion. “But... what would I have to do?”

Lucius pulled the photographs back out of his reach. “Naturally, I don’t expect anything but your gratitude, which I trust you will find adequate means to express in the fullness of time. That’ll be all, for now.”

Mockridge wiped his eyes with an handkerchief and rose from the chair, giving Lucius a wary glance at suggested he could not quite trust to his luck at getting off so lightly. When his hand was on the doorknob, Lucius’ commanding voice arrested him once more: “you know, of course, that the Ministry feels that our friends at Gringotts have rather been dragging their feet over the lowering of interest rates.”

“Well, you know they’re cautious by nature–”

“The foibles of goblins are not my concern, but _yours_. Make sure they toe the line on this one, hmm? There’s a good chap.”

With one last baleful, backward glance, Cuthbert Mockridge fumbled his way out the office.

“What did you mean by ‘the lesser of two evils’?” Harry asked, as soon as the door had clicked shut again. “Cresswell?”

Lucius nodded. 

“Because he’s muggle-born?”

“Oh, you’ve done your research.” Lucius’ eyes sharpened with amusement. “Above and beyond, Potter. I’m impressed.”

“You’d really oppose a talented successor to that pathetic worm we just met, just because his family didn’t come in with Simon Magus?”

Lucius sat back and folded his hands atop the desk, looking very magisterial. “I believe the people best suited to defending wizards’ interests in the financial world are those with an appreciation of tradition, yes. That aside, I think Cresswell insufficiently biddable and just a little too clever for his own good. Not a team player, that one – and I find I have already filled my quota of insolent boys.”

“And this is all for the greater good? You don’t just... enjoy being puppet master of the whole Ministry?”

“My enjoyment has nothing to do with it – this is simply how things get done.”

“There’s realpolitik and then there’s–” Harry cut himself off. “Forget it. I don’t know what I expected.”

“Homesick for the aurors are you?” Lucius clapped his hands together. “Well, good news. Downstairs on level two there awaits you a cubicle stuffed with ledgers for the last financial year. It is now your job to check them, and, if necessary, call those to whom they pertain to interview.”

Harry scratched his head. “Is this a punishment? You know I’m crap at bookkeeping.”

Lucius rose from his desk and sighed. “Good lord, child, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? The neat little numbers in their neat little columns are not the point. The point is reconnaissance on the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Ah. Why?”

“Let me worry about why, hmm?”

“How am I supposed to know what to report to you if you don’t tell me what you’re looking for?”

“If I’ve taught you anything then you’ll know it when you see it,” Lucius opened the door and stared at him impatiently. “Chop chop! No time like the present.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trufax, banshees are very elitist creatures - you have to be one of the great Irish chieftain families for them to even bother haunting you. 
> 
> ‘America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests,’ is a Henry Kissinger quote.


	3. Chapter 3

Fudge’s first mistake was making Lucius Malfoy wait. In the anteroom beyond the Minister for Magic’s office the minute hand ticked its way past the hour and Lucius sat, one leg over the other and his hands upon his cane, his mind occupied with various dark and revolving thoughts, foremost of which was _how dare he_.

When Cornelius Fudge finally appeared in the doorway he was all avuncular smiles and hearty handshakes. “Lucius, Lucius my good man, come in, come in!” 

Upon the oval conference table in the office was a huge silver teapot and an arrangement of the Ministry’s thick, ugly ceramic cups. On one side sat Hermione Granger, her frizzy hair glowing like a halo from the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window at her back.

“Do you know Ms Granger?” Fudge twinkled moronically. “She’s advising me on an initiative.”

“I have read of her exploits in the tabloids,” Lucius replied tartly, easing himself into a seat. Granger glared at him but Fudge seemed impervious to their mutual loathing.

“Now Hermione, dear,” Fudge continued, “this is Lucius Malfoy. He is a very necessary man, you understand. He puts the stick about, he gets things done, eh?”

“I believe I am familiar with Mr Malfoy’s methods.” She aimed an expression at Lucius that was more of a baring of her teeth than a smile. At least the dreadful mudblood had spirit, he’d give her that.

“Well, let’s get you up to speed, Lucius. Now, for a long I’ve been thinking that we really ought to do something for the muggleborns in our little community. A lot of nasty business about in the papers of late about ‘second-class citizens’ and what-not. The Ministry must be seen to actually _do_ something.”

Under the table, Lucius drummed his fingers on his knee in impatience. “And you suggest?”

“Hermione has one or two ideas–”

“First,” Granger cut in, “measures to ease muggleborn children into our education system. Not just an owl out of nowhere, but a proper introduction to our world. Open days at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Village for budding witches and wizards in advance of their first year at school. Maybe even Diagon Alley if we can sort out the logistics. We also thought of an exchange programme. Muggles have something similar for kids from different countries – a child from a magical household could swap places with a muggleborn one for a few weeks of summer holiday. A cross-cultural experience like that would help people on both sides and perhaps ease some of the tensions the Minister has highlighted.”

Lucius turned his head to address the Minister. “With the greatest respect, Cornelius, do you think this is something people are likely to agree to?”

“Well, why not? Children overcoming prejudice, who could object to that?”

Granger’s eyes flashed. “Perhaps Mr Malfoy does.”. 

“The thought occurs,” Lucius began, “that a great deal of people might view this as strangers forcing their way into the very places witches and wizards have done so much to seal off and protect – not least their homes.” 

“I don’t think anyone’s advocating that, Lucius,” Fudge blustered. “This exchange scheme would be entirely voluntary–”

Lucius cut across him to continue: “we also need to consider the Statute of Secrecy, and why, exactly, it was put in place: viz. to stop the muggles’ delicate minds being warped by powers beyond their ken; to protect witches and wizards, and safeguard their privacy. Those whose records do not go back to the seventeenth century may have forgotten what muggles are capable of when faced with that which they do not understand, but our older British families have most certainly _not_.”

Granger gave a huff of frustration. “No-one’s talking about revealing the wizard world to the general public, only to muggleborn magic users and their immediate families. Perhaps, Mr Malfoy, you don’t see a difference?”

“Much as it may pain me to throw cold water on your plans when you’ve already envisioned the congratulatory headlines,” Lucius retorted, “the simple fact is this: no-one gets both worlds. Muggleborns move into wizard society when they come of age because they have demonstrated abilities which allow them to participate in our culture... to a certain extent.”

“That doesn’t mean muggleborns should have to abandon their families, or live in the magical world forever!”

Lucius favoured her with a chilly smile. “And who do you know who chose to go back, Ms Granger? Hmm? I notice you did not elect to follow your parents into a noble career of hacking at teeth with primitive metal tools.”

Granger flushed. “Let’s just say your views on muggles are well known, Malfoy, but thankfully the rest of the magical world doesn’t share your outrageous prejudices.”

“Oh, I think you would be surprised at how many honest, decent folk do.”

“Well, I think that’s enough lively debate for now!” Fudge interrupted, his agitation evident. “Lucius, while I appreciate your candour, as always, I’m afraid this isn’t a consultation. The policies have already been drawn up.”

“I see,” said Lucius. His fingers creaked on the head of his cane with the effort of repressing his anger. 

“I trust we can rely on your cooperation, Lucius,” Fudge said. He gave a short, affectedly-carefree chuckle: “what do we pay you for, after all?”

That was his last mistake.

*~*~*

As a house elf closed the front door behind her, Narcissa Malfoy paused, her eyebrows drawing together in a thoughtful frown as she observed a familiar windowpane twill cloak hanging up on the hook.

“Dobby,” she said to the elf, “is my husband at home?”

“The master is being in his study, ma’am,” the elf replied.

“Did he say why he is home so early? Is he ill?”

“Master is not seeming ill to Dobby,” he rubbed his thin upper arms. “His stinging spells is aimed exceedingly well.”

“Hm,” said Narcissa. She made her way up the stairs and towards the wing containing the rooms given over to Lucius’ exclusive use. 

She found her husband still in his study. Lucius sat in a leather wing-back chair with his hands folded on top of his cane, his eyes shadowed and unreadable in the firelight. One of his deerhounds lay with its head on his knee, looking at its master beseechingly. When it saw Narcissa it slunk away to a corner of the room.

Without a word, Narcissa went and sat next to him on the arm of the chair, winding her arm around his shoulders to draw him, unresisting, against her bosom. Her manicured nails carded through the fine hair at his temples and as she brushed back the pale lock lying across his neck she caught sight of the jagged keloid scar there – the remnant of a hex from Lucius’ days in Germany. He could have healed it himself, but that was not how things were done in that land – there, men bore dueling scars about their faces as badges of honour.

“Lucius, my love,” she said. “Confide in me.”

The silence persisted for a long moment, the only sound in the room the crackling and popping of the fire. “After all I’ve done for him!” he hissed.

“Cornelius Fudge?”

“Of course Cornelius Fudge! That man would have been in the gutter years ago if it weren’t for me to enforce his half-baked policies and absurd decrees. Do you know he actually dared to imply that I need him and the pittance of a salary the Ministry doles out? Me – a Malfoy – and him, whose family came up not more than a hundred years ago in trade! His people were from Manchester – or some other such godawful place.” 

“The puppet has no idea who even pulls his strings? How pathetic.”

“Well, quite.” Lucius sat up straight again, breathing deeply to recover his composure. The determined, calculating look on his face prompted a memory to surface in Narcissa’s mind of their Hogwarts days.

_It was late at night, and Narcissa was alone in the library’s Restricted Section. Earlier that day Amycus Carrow had sabotaged her potions practical, earning her the professor’s derision before the whole class, and she was pale and fuming._

_A discreet cough drew her attention and she looked up to find Lucius standing a few feet off – he had managed to slip by her warning wards, somehow. He was thinner and more sharp-featured then, and his prefect’s badge glinted in her wandlight._

_“Are you going to turn me in to Slughorn?” she had asked._

_“And force him to deduct points from our own house – why on earth would I do that, Miss Black?”_

_In response to this she gave him a look of deep suspicion: Lucius was one year her senior, and although they had often attended the same parties in their youth, she had always kept her distance from him. She was all too aware of the antagonism that had sprung up between the Malfoy heir and her elder sister, Bellatrix, and had assumed his disapprobation must extend to herself. Then there was the matter of Andromeda’s unfortunate alliance – she could only imagine what Abraxas Malfoy must be spluttering about that over the breakfast table._

_Lucius came closer and folded his arms across his chest. “I heard about Carrow’s petty little stunt. Payback, I imagine, for your refusal of his invitation to that inane Slug Club party. If you’re searching for a particularly painful hex, I’m sure I have some suggestions.”_

_“It isn’t about pain,” she told him. “In fact, nothing less will satisfy me than his complete and total humiliation.”_

_This statement seemed to interest Lucius, who narrowed his eyes at her and pressed: “so he knows never to dare cross you again?”_

_“Oh,” she said mildly. “He won’t know it’s me. Letting him know the source of such devastating misfortune would be altogether too charitable.”_

_Lucius smiled at her then, soft and wondering. “All this, just because he ruined your potion?”_

_“Because he dared to think I owed his pathetic male ego any consideration whatsoever,” she said cooly, “merely this.”_

_“Well then,” Lucius stepped closer, she could feel a faint whisper of his breath against her cheek, “perhaps you would allow me to assist you in this noble endeavour?”_

_She had gazed up at him. “Why should you wish to do that?”_

_Then Lucius surprised her by taking her hand between both of his own – a stiff and rather chivalrous gesture. “I think you and I should be allies, Narcissa. We are far too dangerous to be enemies.”_

Jolted back to awareness of the present by the plaintive, eerie cry of one of the peacocks in the garden outside, Narcissa reached down to take his hand in just such a manner as he had done, all that time ago. “Do you remember Carrow?” she asked.

Lucius blinked at her. “How could I forget? Expelled and not even allowed to take his N.E.W.T.s – I hear nowadays he’s cast off from his family for being a vicious, ne’er-do-well drunk. I’m sure he’d agree we can chalk that one up as a victory – if he did but know it.”

“It’s the same,” she said. “You can, and will, take Fudge’s job, but that’s not enough. So humiliate him, ruin him, and don’t even give him the satisfaction of knowing it was you.” 

She kissed him and felt his smile curving against her mouth. Then she rose from the chair and left him to his own devices.

Lucius remained for a long time with his eyes closed and his hands folded together in his lap, allowing the disparate threads of his initial ideas to weave themselves together into something more intricate and substantial. Then he got up and moved to his desk, where he dashed off a note to his assistant and summoned a house elf to deliver it to the owlery. Crossing to the study fireplace he pulled out his wand to remove the block on the floo. Feeling a certain satisfaction at having set events in motion, he went downstairs to join his wife in a pre-dinner drink. 

*~*~*

Screeching and scrabbling woke Harry from a deep sleep. Startled, he tripped over the bottom of his pajama bottoms on his way to the window, dropping his glasses and, inevitably, treading on them. Recovering from the stumble and fitting the glasses back on his face to squint through one spiderweb-cracked lens, he saw there was a particularly large and stately long eared owl on his windowsill. 

He pulled up the sash and let the animal in. It gazed around his bedroom in disdain before offering its leg from him to untie the letter. Harry felt his stomach twist as he recognised Lucius Malfoy’s seal. The address on the letterhead was Malfoy Manor, and the message was typically commanding and curt.

_Potter, come immediately._

He paused only to dress and attempt to flatten his rebellious hair before grabbing a handful of floo powder and stepping into the fireplace. When he clambered out the other side he found himself in a study, lit only by the fire embers. As he knocked the ash off his feet on the fender, a clock in the hall beyond announced midnight with twelve mournful bongs.

A house elf appeared with a muted pop and the room lit up just as if someone had turned one of the muggle dimmer switches Harry’s uncle Vernon was so absurdly proud of.

“Mr Potter is waiting here for the master, Mr Potter is helping himself to a drink and not touching any of the master’s papers,” the elf told him, all in one breath. 

“Er... ok,” said Harry. It gave him a stern look and disappeared again.

Rubbing his eye and fighting a yawn, Harry walked to the cabinet by the wall and poured himself some whisky from a cut-glass decanter. One sniff of its peaty aroma told him that it was a highland single malt that would put his usual tipple of Ogden’s to shame.

Next to the decanters and glasses on the cabinet was an arrangement of family photographs in silver frames. Harry bent down to study them more closely. The first in the series was of an adolescent Draco (in his school robes and Slytherin scarf) standing awkwardly next to his mother, who had a proprietorial hand clamped on his shoulder. Harry recognised Narcissa Malfoy from the visitor’s stand of the school quidditch pitch – an elegant, haughtily-beautiful woman. As the photographic Narcissa turned her gaze from Draco it lost its dewy softness, becoming challenging and direct.

The next was a black and white image of Lucius and Narcissa on their wedding day. Cherry blossom petals drifted through the air of the picture’s foreground, alighting on Narcissa’s drawn-back veil, the wind ruffled Lucius’ long hair. They made a strikingly handsome couple, yet there was something about their matching paleness and guarded expressions that made them rather eerie – like veelas. 

The next picture was of a chubby blonde toddler – Draco, he assumed – slobbering over a sterling silver rattle (not a silver _spoon_ , Harry reflected, but close enough). Partially hidden behind it was an image of Lucius and a teenage Draco in tweed hunting attire against a backdrop of misty mountains, nogtail nets hitched over their shoulders and a white dog sitting at their feet, its tongue lolling out one side of its mouth as it panted. It was weird to think of Lucius Malfoy doing things for recreation, Harry thought. He liked to imagine that when Lucius wasn’t actively menacing Ministry employees he simply sat in a darkened lair and plotted, his severe profile periodically illuminated by lightning flashes.

The last picture seemed more recent: Draco in some kind of military uniform, judging by the epaulettes on the jacket and peaked, white cap.

Approaching footsteps made him take a guilty step back, almost sloshing whisky over the side of his glass.

“Ah, Harry,” Lucius said. “So glad you could make it. I thought perhaps you might be asleep already.”

“Your owl soon put a stop to that.”

“Indeed? I am sorry,” Lucius said, sounding very much like he wasn’t. 

“I was just admiring your photos,” Harry told him, belatedly wondering if it was an outrageous liberty to have done so. “Is Draco in the army now, or something?”

“Légion Étrangère d’Magiciens,” Lucius said. “It’s good for a man to be a soldier in his youth. It teaches him fortitude and discipline,” he glanced over at Harry, “not to mention good posture.” 

Harry snapped up out of his slouch and stepped back, almost bumping into the wood-paneled wall. Lucius chuckled. “Do you know that you hover, Potter? When you’re not hunching over, you’re always lingering in doorways and drifting into corners. It’s really the most infuriating habit.”

Harry stiffened at the criticism. He did hover – it was the legacy of his anxious childhood, of his desire to avoid the sudden eruptions of yet another parental row, or to become the focus of his father’s mercurial temper (by turns too roughly jovial, or too angrily morose for a child’s comprehension). Harry had learned to tell the mood of a room while lurking outside it; from the tone of the voices drifting up the stairs, from one quick glance at his father’s face.

“So, why did you want to see me?” he asked Lucius, clearing his throat. “Are you going to fire me, or something?”

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I would drag you from your warm bed just to hand you your notice? Even I am not so sadistic and unreasonable as that.”

“Well,” Harry shrugged. “I haven’t made much progress in the DMLE, so...” 

“Truth is the daughter of time, Potter,” Lucius lowered himself into a wingback chair and gestured to its twin on the opposite side of the hearth. When Harry had likewise seated himself and taken a fortifying sip of whisky, Lucius crossed one leg over the other and announced: “it seems as if we are on the cusp of a leadership crisis.”

Harry sat forward. “What, is Fudge walking into a scandal?” 

“He called me to his office today to discuss some new policies. They concern an opening up of the wizarding world to the families of muggleborns. Under normal circumstances, I would of course put my own feelings aside to... smooth the way for such measures, but there are limits to even my powers of persuasion, Harry.”

“You think there’ll be objections?”

“Oh, I predict there’ll be open mutiny – and if enough people clamour ‘no confidence’, Fudge will be forced to step down.”

“So, what do you want from me?”

“Tell me about the key players of the DMLE. Who might be positioning themselves to step up for the top job, in your humble opinion?”

Harry licked his lips. “Shacklebolt, for sure. Scrimgeour. Thicknesse, maybe.”

“Yes, that’s just what I thought,” Lucius nodded, absently, and rose from his chair, walking a few paces with his hands clasped behind his back and then turning on his heel to gaze into the fireplace. “Then, of course, there’s our level one brass – the Senior Undersecretary, Umbridge – I dare say she’d like to climb up a peg.”

“Who’s eligible to stand for Minister?”

“In theory, any witch or wizard of unimpeachable character. In practice, it’s those within the Ministry with a firm power base and followers whose arms can be twisted into casting a vote.”

Harry scratched his head “I didn’t know our kind had elections.”

“Not like the muggles do – only internal ones. After the list of candidates is announced, there’s a first ballot to weed out no-hopers, then a second to confirm the new Minister.” 

“And what’s your role in all this?”

“Making sure we don’t end up with someone more incompetent than Fudge.”

“Ah. And what’s mine?”

“Glad you asked, Potter. I’m afraid it’s back to the aurors with you – you’re now a mole.” Lucius narrowed his eyes. “Do you know what a mole is, other than a kind of rodent nuisance?”

“Yes, but people know I work for you, Lucius – that’s why no-one in the department talks to me anymore!”

Lucius tutted and pursed his lips as if in sympathy. “Then I’ll have to arrange a very public firing, won’t I?”

Harry choked on a mouthful of whisky. “What?”

“So you can slink back into their open arms. Mole, remember?”

“And if I object to these underhand methods?”

“Your objections will be ignored, of course. Whatever the paperwork says, I will still be your boss.”

“Great,” said Harry flatly. 

“You’ll deliver your clandestine reports here.”

“Even better. I love rattling through the floo networks in the middle of the night.” 

“You may apparate to the front gate if you prefer.”

He stood up. “And come in by the tradesman’s entrance, yeah?” 

Lucius showed his amusement with a slight quirk of his lip. “Oh, you are grumpy when it’s past your bedtime.”

Harry drained his drink and turned to set his glass down on a nearby table. Footsteps on the parquet floor told him Lucius had moved closer and he heard the elder wizard let out a put-upon sigh.

“Do stand up straight, Potter. No-one will ever pay you any attention until you start cultivating some _presence_.” Lucius put his hand against the small of Harry’s back and pressed insistently.

Harry jerked upwards as if someone had tugged a string attached to the top of his head. His breathing came fast and shallow and he was aware that Lucius was still staring at him with a faintly amused look. 

“Why not you, Lucius?” he blurted out. 

“Why not me _what_?”

“Standing for Minister. I mean, you could do it – better than anyone else, probably.”

“Me?” Lucius’ eyes widened. “Oh no – perish the thought, Harry.” He smiled and Harry felt the fingers on his back spreading out. “Do you truly think I’d make a good Minister for Magic?”

“Yeah, I mean you’re efficient, right? That’s your thing. And persuasive.” he jerked his head towards the silver-framed photographs. “I mean, authoritative.... paternal.”

“Is that what you think it is – being everyone’s daddy?”

“No, I mean... well...”

“Because I think you’re right.”

Harry’s gaze snapped back to Lucius. “What?”

“People are looking for someone to obey. Someone to smile and wave at them from the papers, and tell them who the baddies are. Someone to reassure them that the village clock will still chime and there’ll always be jam for tea and, above all, that someone cares. An absurd fantasy, really, but it’s what the people want – who am I to say they should desire otherwise?”

Harry blinked at him. “So why don’t you stand, then, if you know exactly what everyone wants?”

Lucius patted his shoulder and took a step back. “Oh, I’m strictly behind the scenes.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Off to bed with you now, young man – you’re about to have a very trying day.”

As Harry reached for the floo powder, he only hoped the flush creeping up his neck would be attributed to the whisky and firelight.

*~*~*

The light was still on in Narcissa’s dressing room, so Lucius knocked and entered. “I thought you’d be in bed by now, dear.”

She was at the dressing table, writing busily in her neat, flowing hand. “I wanted to finish off my letter to Draco.”

“Ah,” Lucius said. “Do send him my regards, won’t you?”

Narcissa turned her head to give him a cool look, then continued with her correspondence. Draco joining the Foreign Legion was something of a sore spot between them. Narcissa seemed to blame Lucius for their son’s rash decision, or even to believe he had somehow encouraged it. Lucius had been as just surprised as she was to learn of Draco’s intentions – he had always considered his son rather cowardly (not, in itself, a bad quality – self-interest, in all its forms, was a marked feature of the Malfoy temperament). He rather thought this odd quirk of impetuousness in Draco must come from the Black side (some of that lot sorted Gryffindor, after all). All the same, he was much too gracious to tell Narcissa of his suspicions: he had known the potential pitfalls of an alliance between their houses long before he made it, and she had never given him any cause to regret his final decision.

In truth, he now felt a sort of unaccustomed pride when he thought of Draco. His son had always looked to him for approval, and toadying was something he could abide in no creature. This was a significant (if late) act of defiance, and Lucius would rather enjoy watching Draco live with its consequences. 

It was different for Narcissa, he realised. Lucius had never understood the complex dynamics of their mother-son relationship, but he had observed that Draco’s adolescence was one long pushing away from her, as if he thought the only sure way to make himself into a man was by repudiating all that was soft and nurturing in Narcissa. Lucius’ own mother had had all the warmth and sentiment of a clump of gillyweed, so he couldn’t possibly claim to relate.

Clinking the tip of her quill on the edge of the inkwell she asked: “how did the conference with your little protégé go – satisfactory?”

“Quite. You know, sometimes I think he’s not entirely stupid.” 

Narcissa turned again to give him a sharp, questioning glance. “I do hope he’s not _too_ clever, Lucius.”

“Little danger of that.” He kissed the top of her head and retired to bed. 

*~*~*

Despite Lucius’ injunctions, and his own exhaustion, Harry did not go straight home again.

By half-past midnight he was on his knees in another private room, with another obliging stranger. He moaned and pushed back against the man behind him, feeling the stretch in his wide-spread thighs, the cool, synthetic slickness of the lubricant (always alien and surprising to him, not like anything that existed in his own world). His partner’s hands were clenched tightly on his hips and he was grunting something obscene and nonsensical (“fucking slut for this, aren’t you? Fucking slut for my cock, yeah?”). For all their eccentricities, wizards were rather prudish, Harry thought (or at least, the ones he had been with were). Muggles seemed to like their sex with a side of casual profanity, and Harry found it turned him on even when he didn’t know the meaning of their slang words (“fucking twink, yeah, take it–”).

Harry tilted his hips up and gasped at the feeling of his partner shoving deeper – the pressure, the almost-pain – it was the most exquisite sensation. He had hated it the first time – found the whole experience invasive and humiliating; then, perversely, could hardly wait to do it again. 

As they fell into the harsh, push-pull rhythm, flesh slapping against flesh, Harry let his mind drift until it latched on to a suitable subject for fantasy. Lucius – or elements of him: the soft, cutting quality of the voice that he never needed to raise; a mocking reprimand; his moonstone-coloured eyes glinting; the pressure of his fingertips at the base of Harry’s spine. Then, lost in his recollections of earlier that evening, he heard a voice so low and hoarse that he didn’t immediately recognise it as his own gasp out “Daddy.” 

His partner groaned, then stilled. “Christ, that’s so fucked up,” he whispered breathlessly. 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. His stomach clenched with mingled excitement and mortification, and his prick throbbed. He reached between his slick thighs to stroke it, just, as he thought, to relieve the pressure – his eyes rolled back in his head and he had to stifle a shout.

“Fuck...” the other man’s large hands kneaded the pale flesh of Harry’s arse. “Should I stop?”

Harry turned his head and looked back over his shoulder. “Um, no? I mean, not unless you want to.” 

The man lifted one arm to wipe the sweat from his eyes. “Jesus, you’re so weird.” He sounded almost admiring.

“Yeah, I know,” Harry said, thinking, but not adding: _why do you think I come here?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m perpetually boggled by how elections for Minister for Magic are supposed to work in canon. The Ministry for Magic is a bizarre, messy hybrid of a civil service, police force, parliament AND judiciary and there don’t seem to be any actual MPs or local elections. My headcanon (which no-one else has to agree with) is that magical Britain is essentially a one-party state where the wizard equivalent of the tories rule everyone, forever, and appoint Ministers from within. A bit like Orwell’s 1984, but with quidditch. 
> 
> Also, RL sucks donkey balls right now. Cheer me up in the comments, please, because I’ve just run out of wine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Islamophobic language

When Harry arrived at the second floor of the Ministry the next morning it was to such a fever-pitch of whispering that it sounded like the office had been taken over by a swarm of Africanized bees.

He paused in the doorway for a moment, then resolutely drew himself up to his full height and began to make his way between the rows of desks towards the doors of Lucius’ office. He nodded to various acquaintances as he passed, but noted, with a sinking feeling, that everyone who saw him immediately dropped their glance and hurried away, feigning urgent business. Halfway across the room he bumped into a large, ambulatory stack of binders, which, on closer inspection, all but concealed the the admin-witch who was carrying them.

“Hey Anna,” he said. “What’s up?”

A shiny blonde bob appeared over the top of the stack, followed by woman’s face wearing a shocked, quizzical expression. “Harry!” she hissed, “what are you doing here? Get back downstairs before _he_ sees you!”

“Before who sees what?”

The double doors crashed open with a burst of magic, and Lucius Malfoy strode into view. 

“POTTER!”

Harry had never heard Lucius shout before – it was just as terrifying as he thought it would be. For a moment he actually thought someone might have hit him from behind with a jellylegs jinx.

“You!” Lucius hissed, pointing a shaking finger. “Thought you could get one over on me, did you?”

“What–” Harry sputtered, cutting himself off from completing a sentence which would have otherwise ended “–the actual buggering fuck?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, you nasty little sneak. I know you’ve been feeding me false information to cover for your DMLE cronies. Look the other way for the aurors, hmm? I suppose you think that’s what _loyalty_ is.”

Harry’s brain finally kicked into gear. He raised his chin and crossed his arms over his chest. “And what if I do?”

“Well, I hope you chose your allies wisely, because believe me when I say you’ll never so much as set foot on this level again!” Lucius drew a letter from his robe pocket. “Go on, take it – take it to Scrimgeour and just see how he feels about these back-room antics of yours.”

Harry stepped forward and snatched the document from Lucius’ hand, noting that his employer’s eyes were glinting with sadistic amusement.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” said Harry, giving him an insolent smile. “Good luck finding someone else to do your dirty work.”

At this, a binder flew off Anna’s stack and hit him in the face. 

“Ow!” Harry yelped, putting his hand to his bottom lip and finding his fingertips came away red. “Bloody hell!”

“Miss Kasparek,” Lucius drawled, “you really ought to be more careful with those. After all, we don’t want valuable documents becoming tainted by contact with this traitor’s face.”

“But I didn’t–” Anna protested. Lucius’ sharp look made her close her mouth and press it into a tight line.

With one last fiery, rebellious glance, Harry turned and stalked towards the exit.

“What are you all staring at?” he heard Lucius hiss in his most dangerous voice. “Get back to work – and Merlin help you all if I hear of any gossip!”

*~*~*

Later than evening, Lucius was perusing some papers in his study when Harry Potter climbed out of the fireplace with a flush of indignation high in his cheeks.

“You absolute git!” he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered, as if this might have a chastening effect upon the Malfoy family patriarch.

Lucius set down his brandy glass and regarded the younger man with a look of imperturbable calm. “You seem piqued, Potter.”

“You smacked me in the mouth – in public!”

“It wouldn’t have done much good in private, now would it?” Lucius studied the younger man’s now unmarked face. “I do hope you didn’t heal yourself before meeting with Scrimgeour – I’m sure he’d have found your martyred look very becoming.”

Potter ran a hand back through his hair and seemed slightly mollified. “I do seem to have risen in his estimation. They welcomed me back into the fold, like you said they would.”

“There you go then – every cloud and so forth...” Lucius tutted at him. “Oh, do pour yourself a drink and stop sulking.”

Potter splashed whisky into a glass with his usual lack of finesse and crossed to Lucius’ desk, leaning on it with his free hand. “Well, what did I miss? Make anyone sob uncontrollably today?”

“Oh, you know, just the one or two interns,” Lucius swirled his drink and contemplated it in the candlelight. “What news from our friends in law enforcement?”

“There’s a big press junket happening this Saturday. The Minister is meeting with the first two kids on the exchange scheme. Aurors are on security detail – I guess Fudge thinks dark wizards are going to start popping out of the shrubbery or something.”

“Oh, and where is this monumental hands-across-the-divide taking place?”

“Luton – that’s where the muggle kid lives.”

Lucius made a face. “Couldn’t they find somewhere less...”

“Industrial?”

“Well, I was going to say ‘dreary’, but I suppose everywhere the muggles congregate reeks of a certain kind of desperation.” Lucius sniffed and returned his gaze to Potter. “What do we know about these people?”

“Family’s name is Hussain. Faiza, the young witch, is nine. DMLE had her on record for the usual kids stuff – accidental levitation of objects, once gave her little brother a pair of donkey ears. Family is eminently respectable and middle-class, I understand – the parents are doctors – that’s like a healer.”

“And who from our lot have been chosen to consort with them?”

“A nice Scottish family called MacCulloch.”

Lucius pressed a forefinger against his lips thoughtfully. “The MacCullochs of Dundee, or the highlanders?”

“Dundee.”

“Really? I suppose Alasdair was always a little eccentric, but... sending his child to live with muggles?”

“It’s only for two weeks.”

“I’m sure it’ll seem an eternity to the _poor wee bairn_.”

Harry snorted into his glass. “The whole thing’s a stupid publicity stunt if you ask me. Serve Fudge right if it blows up in his face.”

“That it would, Harry,” Lucius agreed. “And are you privy to details of the security operation?”

“Not really, but Scrimgeour’s having kittens because it has to be a small contingent – no more than six. We can’t have the whole DMLE descending on one suburban semi.”

“But he wants you there?”

“Yeah, because of my mum’s side he thinks I have some special insight into, you know... _that_ world.”

“Don’t you?”

“Hardly,” Potter looked affronted at the suggestion. “I grew up in a magical household. Only muggles I ever met are my mum’s sister and her horrendous family – I’m not even sure they’re human. I always suspected them to be at least part troll.” He finished his drink and set the glass down. “So, that it for now?”

“For this evening. Thank-you, you’ve been very useful. And I do apologise... about the face.”

Potter glared at him. “No you don’t. You’re not sorry in the least.” 

“Well then,” said Lucius as he rose from his chair, “at least we know your youthful gullibility hasn’t reached dangerous levels.”

Potter gave a huff of amusement, shaking his head.

Lucius touched his elbow. “You surprised me this morning.”

Potter almost started away from him and then visibly forced himself into stillness. “What do you mean?”

Lucius narrowed his eyes and dropped his tone to an intimate murmur. “You were genuinely frightened, weren’t you?”

Potter hunched and looked down, but did not pull away. “No.”

“Come, you’re not that good of an actor, Harry. I could see you tremble – I could smell your sweat.” Lucius felt Potter’s pulse thudding against his thumb where it rested in the crook of the younger man’s inner arm. “Tell me _why_ , that’s all. What terrible deed is it you think me capable of?”

Potter’s eyes widened behind his glasses and there was still a hint of insolence to his tone. “Do you not _know_ that you’re really intimidating? I kind of thought that was the point.”

“I have power over the weak and venal, but you’re not one of them are you?” Lucius smiled. “No, I don’t think you are.” He leaned in closer and found that if the child would just _stand up straight_ they would be the same height. “Posture,” he chided sharply, tightening his grip. When Potter snapped up to attention it put him in just the right position for Lucius to lean in and touch their mouths together.

Potter gasped and stiffened, twisting slightly in Lucius’ grip, which enabled him to push the younger man onto his back foot, his hip bumping against the edge of the desk. 

He kissed Potter like he strongly suspected he had never been kissed before – slow, lingering, just the softest touch of his lips. To provide contrast and piquancy, he squeezed Potter’s elbow until the younger man yelped and pulled away, rubbing the abused arm and giving Lucius a look of utter bewilderment. 

“Come back on Saturday, hmm?” Lucius told him, straightening the neck of Potter’s robe where it had been pulled askew. “Straight after you clock out with the aurors – don’t keep me waiting.”

“Um... right,” said Potter, eyes dark and pink lips parted. Then he blinked, turned on his heel and beat a fast retreat to the fireplace. 

Lucius tutted to himself at his assistant’s display of youthful mawkishness and, after pausing to check his pocket watch, made his way swiftly from the room and descended via a back staircase. 

All was dark and still in the conservatory, except for the leafy slithering of some sentient plants. Lucius picked his way across the paving slabs by wand light. 

“About time,” came a querulous voice from near the patch of especially deep shadow by the open glass door. 

“I have heard it said that patience is a virtue, Mr Gasper. I was retrieving some necessary information.”

At this, the man he was assigned to meet stepped into the circle of wand light. He was scruffy and lank-haired, his face contorted into the perpetual sneer of one whose strongest belief is that fate has wronged him. He wore a strange garment Lucius couldn’t identify – but if he had been familiar with muggle clothing he would have known the tattered canvas for an army surplus jacket. The Gaspers of Fugglestone St Peter were once a fairly prominent and well-regarded Wiltshire wizarding family, but a series of financial blunders over the two previous generations had severely reduced their fortunes. Bill Gasper was the last of his line, and a squib to boot, leaving him little opportunity of rebuilding the estate. Like many of his unfortunate kind, he was shunned by polite society, and lived a sort of half-life, grubbing for whatever he could in the cracks between worlds. 

A wretched, degraded creature, Lucius thought – but even such as he had their uses.

“Well – is it the right girl?” Gasper snapped.

“Yes,” Lucius replied. It had been easy enough to obtain the list of muggleborn contenders for Fudge and Granger’s programme, and mere child’s play to influence the final choice – several of the committee members were already in Lucius’ pocket after all, for various unfortunate slips in their professional or personal conduct. 

“The one in Luton?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, that’s good that is,” Gasper chuckled to himself distractedly. “My mates will be right chuffed with that. Or not chuffed exactly, if you know what I mean.”

“I am happy to say that I have no idea what you mean. Now, the aurors will cast a perimeter to keep curious muggles away, but I’ll have someone standing by to dispel it at the critical moment. Just don’t let it get out of hand, Gasper, understand? Make a scene, and make it embarrassing, not fatal – it is not to our purpose that Fudge should go down as some kind of martyr.”

Gasper regarded him narrowly. “What’s ‘our’? Hmm? Me and you are pals now, are we Malfoy? Or is that kind of the royal ‘we’?”

Lucius carefully shuttered his expression, not allowing his considerable anger and contempt to show. “You and I do not need to be friends to be of one purpose. This cause is just as much yours as it is mine, after all – why should you have to beg for scraps, hm, while muggleborns swan in and take the rights and education that should be yours by birth? And now, thanks to the current Minister’s policies, their families are getting a place on the gravy train, too. It’s an injustice.”

“Life’s a fucking injustice,” Gasper retorted. “What, you look at me like I’m something stuck to the sole of your boot, but somehow I’m supposed to believe we’re all on the same team? Jolly quidditch brooms and all that? I’ll settle for the other half of the money, and never darken your doorstep again, thanks.”

“You’ll get it, of course.”

“I’d better. Don’t fuck with me, Malfoy – I’ve got nothing to lose, remember?” Having delivered this parting shot, Gasper turned with a flare of his mud-splashed khaki and strode out into the darkness.

“Well may you think that,” Lucius murmured. 

_Everyone has something to lose_ – that was Lucius Malfoy’s philosophy. After all, he made it his business to find out exactly what that thing was – and how best to take it. 

*~*~*

“Welcome, welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen of the press! You are about to witness a great moment in our history...” 

Harry suppressed a yawn as Fudge droned on. He’d had to attend a six AM auror briefing, and his official robes were suffocatingly hot and scratchy against his skin. To his left in the front garden of the Hussain family’s home stood Kingsley Shacklebolt, looking calm and authoritative. Rufus Scrimgeour was off to one side scrutinizing the crowd with beady-eyed attention. There were some fresh-faced aurors manning the gate and one lurking around the back. So far, so tedious. 

After a lengthy prologue, the Minister for Magic went through a pantomime of knocking on the front door, behind which the young witch Faiza was ready and waiting to open it. As she stepped meekly onto the driveway – followed by her sober and understandably anxious-looking parents and brother – the Maculloch family (led by Faiza’s opposite number, Malcolm) came forward to meet them, all broad grins, wild ginger hair and shameless wizard eccentricity. Fudge actually went so far as to join the two adolescents’ hands as if he was marrying them off to one another. Flashbulbs popped.

Over the Minister’s continued press-aimed bonhomie Harry began to detect strains of another sound. Faint, at first, and then closer, a low rumble that resolved into the roar of an agitated crowd. The aurors’ heads snapped around to where the corner of the cul-de-sac met the horizon. Before long, a many-footed beast appeared, its spine bristling with St George’s cross flags and placards which became marginally more legible as it stampeded forward.

ALBION DEFENCE LEAGUE

DOWN WITH EXTREMISM

NO SHARIA LAW HERE

BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH

The light glinted off Scrimgeour’s glasses as he motioned ‘stand down’ to the other aurors.

“Those... people. They can’t see us, right?” Harry hissed to Shacklebolt out of the side of his mouth.

“Not unless there’s wizards among them. Or–” Shacklebolt’s pause came as they all felt the eerie sensation of magic dissipating – a feeling like your ears popping from a change in air pressure. 

“Shit,” murmured Harry. 

At more emphatic gestures from Scrimgeour the aurors drew into a line, making a barrier in front of the gathered press. Then Scrimgeour’s magically-amplified voice rang out across the driveway. “STAND BACK, THIS IS OFFICIAL MINISTRY BUSINESS. DISPERSE OR FACE REPRISALS.”

This prompted the beast of many shaven heads to break out in laughter and derisory chants. At the front of the scrum was a man in a dirty canvas jacket who had a long, sallow face, twisted like a tree root. “Disperse?” he sneered, in a reedy, piercing voice. “Disperse? What for? We’re just exercising our democratic right to protest.” 

“WHAT ARE YOU PROTESTING, EXACTLY?”

More laughter and emphatic shouts. “Oi oi!” called a man with a poorly-executed tattoo of a bulldog on his bare chest. “Fucking meeting of the grand high imams, is it, yeah? Never seen so many fucking grown men in dresses.”

Somewhere behind Harry a flashbulb went off. 

“Oi, wanker! That better not show up on your fucking Al Jazeera-jihad-fucking-central website, you hear me–”

“–I REPEAT, DISPERSE OR FACE REPRISALS.”

“Oh, bugger,” Harry muttered, fingers flexing around his wand. 

“Bugger indeed,” Shacklebolt replied gravely.

The beast roared, and then it charged.

*~*~*

That afternoon, the floo spat a rather tired and footsore Harry into an entirely different room of Malfoy Manor. It was a library, but at first he almost took it for a cathedral: the floor was grey marble and light filtered in from stained-glass windows depicting the greatest magicians throughout history: Circe, Merlin, of course, in a triptych flanked by his nemeses Morgan le Fay and Nimue, followed by Albertus Magnus and John Dee. The fittings were all of black walnut and finished with baroque scrolls, and spiral staircases at each corner led to an upper level of stacks surrounded by a balcony. The ceiling was decorated with a fresco of a constellation in the night sky (Harry thought it was Hydra, but astronomy was never his best subject) and plaster Roman deities frolicked in the cornices.

Fulvia would hyperventilate if she saw this, he thought – it was bigger than Flourish and Blotts. 

Miles away, seemingly, at the other end of the room, Lucius Malfoy stood over an immense, six-footed, french-polished table. Before him lay the ever-present newspapers and a silver tray bearing a tea service of a fine blue willow-pattern china.

At Harry’s approach down the central aisle, Lucius set down his tea-cup and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. “Ah, Harry, I’ve just seen the evening edition.” He tutted at a photograph of Fudge ducking behind the line of aurors to dodge a hail of bottles. “I can’t say they got the Minister’s good side.”

“It was a fucking disaster from start to finish,” Harry put his hands on his hips and sighed. “What is Fudge going to do? I mean, it looks really, really bad. Both the kids were injured in the stampede and we had to obliviate about fifty people.”

“He’ll claw back somehow. Visit the kids in St Mungo’s, I imagine, and invite the press along.”

“The muggleborn is being treated in Great Ormond Street. Fudge will hardly go there, will he?”

“Well. It will take more than one crisis to unseat Cornelius Fudge,” Lucius gestured to the tea set on the tray. “Do help yourself to darjeeling.”

Harry shook his head. “No thanks. Look, what I don’t understand is how that bunch of skinheads got wind of it.”

“The – what did you call them?”

“Skinheads. It’s a generic name for that kind of muggle – they shave their heads to look macho, go to football matches to kick off fights. They hate foreigners, and... other kinds of people. That particular group call themselves the Albion Defence League. They claim they’re freedom fighters defending England from radical Islam – looked more like a bunch of bloody hooligans to me.”

“Aren’t you a just a fount of information?” Lucius blinked at him thoughtfully. “As to your question, isn’t it obvious?”

“No. Should it be?”

“Someone must have set them on, don’t you think?”

“Who?”

“Someone who wants Fudge’s job, and isn’t above playing dirty.”

“Couldn’t be Shacklebolt – he’s squeaky clean. Scrimgeour, too – much as I dislike the bastard, he has a sense of honour. Which leaves Umbridge and Thicknesse – both old Slytherins, according to my research.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, no offense, but you don’t sort Slytherin unless you value cunning and power over the rules.”

Lucius gave a low chuckle. “And you yourself are so very enamored of rules, Potter.” 

“Well, I’m not running for Minister.”

“Britain’s loss, no doubt. Well, who shall we point the finger at?”

“Umbridge is ruthless – everyone says so – but she likes to do her bullying from inside the law, doesn’t she? And she hates muggles, just like she hates werewolves and merpeople – anything she sees as tainted or less than wizard. I can’t see her having any contact with muggles, even if it was for her own gain. Thicknesse, though – he’s a dark horse. The aurors don’t... it’s not that they don’t like him. They don’t quite trust him, he’s a good department head, but he’s quiet, unreadable. No-one knows what his allegiances are.”

Lucius crossed to a bay window and stared out at the front lawn as he sipped his tea, brows pulled together in thought. “Then... until we get further information, at least, let us assume the worst of our friend Pius.”

“This is all academic. We don’t even know who’s planning to declare candidacy, when, or even if, Fudge gets the heave-ho.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that an hour in politics is a long time?” Lucius lowered himself onto the cushion-strewn bench seat and held out his cup in a mock toast. “If you don’t plan ahead you’ll be left behind, sprawled in the dust as others step over you.”

“Ok, but just so you know – I’m rubbish at divination.” He stepped closer to Lucius but studiously avoided his gaze by looking out the window. As he gazed across the front garden he saw that Narcissa Malfoy was making her way down the gravel path, looking poised and elegant, as ever, in a robe of grey marled wool and an artfully arranged silk scarf. 

“Mrs Malfoy looks... well today,” he said, in what he hoped was a light, conversational tone. “Is she off somewhere nice?”

Lucius gave him a wry look. “Witches’ Institute. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “I just.... I can’t imagine it, being married for what – twenty-five years? And you don’t talk about her, or... seem to occupy the same parts of the house, even.”

“Narcissa and I find that the secret to happiness in marriage is to cultivate many independent interests.”

Harry hugged himself tighter. “What’s the point in getting married at all then, just appearances?”

Lucius blinked at him languidly. “Everyone should have someone in whom they may place their absolute and complete trust.”

“Trust isn’t the same as love, though, is it?”

“No, I find it’s infinitely superior. Love is a fickle, selfish, unreasonable thing – why else would our ancestors depict it as a fat toddler?” Lucius pointed up to a gilt and plaster Cupid in the ceiling cornice.

“So do you trust me?” 

“I trust you absolutely... to be absolutely human.”

“What does that even mean?” Harry frowned and attempted to stare down Lucius, who merely returned him a look of bland amusement. “Look,” he continued, taking a deep breath, “are you going to do that again? Kiss me, I mean. Not that I care if the answer’s ‘no’, I just... I’d like to know where I stand.”

“You don’t care if the answer is ‘no’?” Lucius sipped his tea and returned the cup to its cradle in the saucer. “Harry, if this is an attempt at seduction, it really leaves a great deal to be desired. I might even be offended if I took you at your word – to think my amorous attentions provoke only apathy, why–” 

Harry leaned down and smacked the cup out of Lucius’ hand. Lucius raised one pale brow as he regarded the the pieces on the floor, and then looked back up at him. “That china was three hundred years old, and of considerably greater value than a mere boy’s rage.” 

“Fix it then,” Harry snapped. “Or don’t – grind it into the fucking four hundred-year-old carpet with your five-hundred galleon boot heel.”

Lucius rose to his feet and Harry, predictably, hunched, his half-step backwards causing his foot to catch on the corner panelling of the bay window. Before he could stumble, one of Lucius’ hands grasped a fistful of the robe covering his shoulder. The other clamped itself beneath his jaw, the stone from a ring Lucius wore on his third finger digging in painfully just below Harry’s left ear. 

When Lucius spoke it was a murmur which spoke of tightly-controlled anger. “I really don’t care for these adolescent tantrums, you realise. If you want my attention, Harry, all you have to do is say so.” The hand at Harry’s throat pressed and then released its pressure, trailing down to the hollow of his throat; the one at his shoulder twisted his robe tighter.

“Oh God,” Harry gasped. “I...”

“Tell me – what do you want?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

“And?”

“I want you to take me to bed.” Harry wet his lips. “And to fuck me – just in case that part’s not clear.”

“Well then,” Lucius ran his fingertip along Harry’s moistened bottom lip. “You’d better stay close to me as we ascend – this house doesn’t take well to strangers; it’s rather old and set in its ways.”

“Sounds like someone else I know.” Harry quipped, before Lucius shoved him backwards so his head banged off the panelling. “Ow. I’ll be good.”

Lucius looked him up and down. “I certainly hope so.”

*~*~*

Harry wrapped his arm around the spiral-carved bedpost and watched Lucius undress. He was broader than Harry had expected, his arms more knotted with sinew, and his body hair was several shades darker than the hair on his head. 

“Oddly coy now, aren’t you?” Lucius commented.

“It’s just... not what I’m used to.”

“What are you used to?”

“Drunken groping in the dark, mostly.”

“Ah, youth – ever the way.” Lucius seated himself on the edge of the mattress and patted the counterpane. “Let’s be having you then, Potter. I have a dinner appointment, you know.”

Harry laughed and tugged his robe off over his head. Some not very graceful fumbling later he was naked and looked up to find Lucius regarding him in that narrow, faintly amused way he always found so provoking.

“This isn’t some kind of ploy, is it?” he asked, linking his arms around Lucius’ neck.

“Why ever would you think so?” Lucius removed Harry’s glasses and thoughtfully set them out of harm’s way on the nightstand.

“I don’t know.” Harry shuddered as Lucius’ hands settled on his hips. “I keep expecting Snatchers to jump out of the wardrobe, or something. Or the photographers from _The Daily Prophet_.”

“That really says more about your imagination than mine.” 

Harry kissed him, one knee on the mattress as he leaned into it, closing his eyes. One of his hands slipped into Lucius’ hair and he thought of how different it was, being with one of his own kind – muggle men hardy ever wore their hair long – it was considered effeminate, or rebellious, somehow; while, for purebloods it was the mark of eminent respectability. Wizards smelled different too, Harry thought – beneath the faint hint of Lucius’ sandalwood and vetiver cologne was that ozone scent of magic.

“Can I...” Harry pulled away from the kiss, looking down to where his fingertips were exploring the hollow of Lucius’ clavicle. He had faint freckles on his shoulders – a detail Harry found entirely surreal. “Um...” 

“Oh, do get on with it. Can you what?”

“Can I call you ‘daddy’? Or is that too weird?”

Lucius gave him a look of open curiosity. “Do I remind you of your father, Harry?”

“No,” Harry replied with such conviction that he startled himself. “Not _at all_.” 

“Perhaps that’s the point, hm?” Lucius suggested as he pulled Harry down onto the bed. 

Harry could only moan in agreement as Lucius kissed his throat, pressing his bottom row of teeth against the underside of Harry’s Adam’s apple. Lucius’ nails were pared short – except for those on his thumbs, which tapered to a point almost like a quill nib, scraping down the flesh of Harry’s back as they kissed. They rolled over together and Harry let Lucius pin him on his front, going up on his knees in eager submission, gasping at the strong grip which ground the bones of his wrist together. Harry had always loved this – how hard and angular male bodies were, how violent and unapologetic their passion.

“Tell me something,” said Lucius. “Did you like it when I struck you? Did it... excite you?”

“No,” Harry hated the traitorous quaver of his own voice.

“Liar. What was it you liked – the pain, or the humiliation? Or should I say, what part did you like _best_?”

“Talking isn’t foreplay, Lucius.”

“Oh, then what have we been doing for the past month?” Lucius gave a considering hum. “And talking isn’t foreplay, _who_?”

Harry’s cock twitched before he even said the word. “Daddy.”

He felt the dry, ticklish brush of Lucius’ hair against his naked back as the elder man reached for the bedside table. A shiver of anticipation worked its way from the nape of his neck to the soles of his feet.

“Turn over.”

Harry made a displeased face into the bed linen. “Why?”

“Because I say so.” Harry rolled onto his back and glared at Lucius, who merely swept his hair back over his shoulder and offered the phial of oil, adding: “and because, since you’re being so difficult, I think I’d rather see you do this to yourself.”

Harry flushed at the thought. “Oh, come on!” 

Lucius pushed one of Harry’s knees back towards his chest. “Now now – do what daddy tells you.”

Harry did. 

Fucking himself with his own fingers while his boss looked on was really not something he had ever imagined in his most perverted dreams – the sensation was a mix of unsettling and the kind of arousal which comes from something deep and hardwired. The inescapable conclusion was that he did, in fact, very much like humiliation – _fucking Lucius_ , Harry thought, why did the bastard always have to be right? He squeezed the base of his own prick and gasped, working a second finger into himself under that watchful and piercing gaze. 

In fact, Lucius did not even have to fuck him to make him come completely undone: raising himself on his knees, he pressed against Harry’s wrist to shove the two oiled fingers deeper, and with his free hand reached over to brush the hair back from Harry’s forehead, murmuring something amused and falsely-tender (later, Harry would recall that it was ‘good boy’ – like he was indeed a child in need of praise). He was still shuddering and covered in his own spunk when Lucius straddled his waist and offered him his prick to suck.

It was messy and uncoordinated, and Harry couldn’t quite establish a rhythm (was it the background thump of industrial music that made this so much easier in the muggle clubs, he wondered?). Lucius’ harsh breathing told him he didn’t mind the lack of finesse - his gaze was avidly fixed on Harry’s wet mouth where it stretched around him, one white-knuckled hand curled around the bedstead, the other gripping Harry’s scalp as he came. Harry swallowed eagerly as Lucius pulled away; he let a sharp-nailed thumb push what had spilled back into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it. Lucius gave a low, breathless laugh at this, leaning in to nuzzle Harry’s jaw before pulling away to recline among the rumpled covers.

As he straightened his cramped limbs and rubbed the back of his neck, Harry gasped out: “I’m not usually...” he blinked at the ceiling and tried harder to string words into something resembling a sentence. “I’m usually better than that. More coordinated. Or something.”

“If you say so,” the elder man’s knuckles brushed against his cheek – an unexpectedly affectionate gesture.

Harry rolled onto his side. “This... I mean, is it going to be weird? Should we pretend it never happened, or... I don’t know. What?”

“Oh good God, Harry, “ Lucius laughed softly and draped his arm over his face. “Is all your pillow talk this excruciating?”

“Uh... I don’t know. I’ve never really tried it before.”

“Most people are less neurotic after sex, you realise.”

“Sorry. I’m not very good at, I don’t know – intrigue?” 

There was a pause before Lucius enquired: “do you know the secret to success in public life?”

“Good posture?”

“Compartmentalising.” Lucius leaned over and touched his lips to Harry’s, humming against his mouth as the kiss lingered. “Now,” he said, pulling back, “when you leave this room, this... experience, it goes into a little box and gets filed away somewhere,” he tapped Harry’s temple with a long forefinger. “And it stays there until its needed again, understand?”

“Absolutely,” Harry said, still breathless and more than a little baffled. “Filing. I’m good at that.”

“Only in a metaphorical sense, Potter – your actual administrative skills are really rather poor. I’m still finding valuable documents you squirreled away in unlikely places. ‘Q’, for instance, comes after ‘p’ and before ‘r’, did you know that?”

“That information is stored in a different compartment I don’t have access to just at the moment,” Harry told him, leaning in closer for another kiss.

“Ah,” Lucius sighed against his lips, sounding oddly wistful. “ _Youth_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! I’m sorry this bit was so late – RL workly things were to blame. Coming up next: birthdays with the withered branch of the Family Black; yet more on the theme of ‘Lucius Malfoy is an irredeemable git’.


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